22 April 2008

Life... the Universe... and Everything

No seriously... everything. I had a loong bus ride to Salt Lake one morning and spent the whole time working on an entry for my blog. I'll try to edit it down as much as possible, but just know in advance.. this is a huge post.

I realize it’s been a long time since I last wrote and I have a looong bus ride ahead of me. So I figured I should finally catch up a little about what’s been going on in my life. I’m still working at Axis41 doing web development. I’ve finally gotten to a point where I feel comfortable there and am really enjoying the work. It always seems to take me a long time to settle into new things but I, finally, really am happy there. However, the commute sucks. The latest express bus to SLC from Provo leaves at 7am, an ungodly hour when I would much rather still be in bed than on a bus to Salt Lake. I spend about 3 hours each day on the bus. Riding the bus itself isn’t that bad, I get to sleep on the way there and I usually call my mom and talk to her on my way home. It’s nice to have some extra time to just talk to her and get good mom advice. Today I actually missed my morning bus so I’m taking a much longer route to Salt Lake. It’s a lot slower than the express bus that I’m used to but I need to work from home on Thursday because I’m graduating!

Usually I would just drive in if I’d slept in a little late. However, my parents are flying in tomorrow and I’m going to drive Taylor’s car up to Salt Lake so that they have a way to get to Provo for my graduation. I’m kinda excited about graduating, but I think I’m more excited about my parents coming up. I probably should be more excited about graduating but I feel rather removed from the whole process. It’s been a year since I was actually in classes at BYU so I don’t have the same relief that you normally have at the end of finals. I took my last class through Independent Study starting in August and it took me all the way until the beginning of this month to finish it, but it’s just not the same as being in real classes. Don’t get me wrong, I’m definitely excited to finally be earning my degree and be an official college graduate, but it’s not like I have a connection to my “graduating class”. In fact, the only reason I’m actually going to graduation and bothering walking is because my parents are coming and I figured I should do something! But it is really satisfying to complete such a major goal.

I guess the other reason graduation seems kinda silly is that it doesn’t change much, I’ll keep working at the same job, I just don’t have to worry about my Independent Study course any more. Well, I guess a few things are changing in my life, but not really as a result of graduating.

One major change that is imminently upcoming is that Eric and I are moving out of Wymount to Orem. We’ll be moving into our friends' apartment this summer while they're on an internship. I haven’t yet found a place for us to live at the end of August. We want to stay in Orem because it gets me a lot closer to Salt Lake, which is advantageous both for catching the bus or getting to the freeway on the days that I drive. Also, Eric recently took a job with Omniture which is based out of Orem. It’s a really great job considering that Eric still isn’t finished with school and it’s the kind of company that he would be happy to be with long term.

Eric is really happy about the job that he has. Omniture is the largest company in the nation that does web analytics. It’s a pretty cool field to be part of and there are amazing opportunities for him. He is working right now as part of the Mandarin Support and Development team which he loves. It’s a great position for him as he gets to combine two things he is passionate about – computers and Chinese. It’s pretty amazing that they hired him. He’s working part time and Omniture doesn’t like hiring part time employees as a general rule. He’s one of only a handful of part time employees in a company that employs several hundred people. That’s how much they wanted him, they were willing to make an exception for him and work out a schedule with him where he’s working 30 hours/week - still a ton for someone going to school full time, but more manageable than the full 40 hours/week.

One especially cool opportunity with Omniture is that they’ve pretty much guaranteed him a full time job upon graduation, which is definitely a nice position to be in. Even cooler though, is that they’re planning on opening an Operations Center in China within the next few years and they’re planning on taking Eric as part of that team! We’re really excited about that opportunity since both of us have ties to China.

As far as being married goes, it’s great! Eric and I have been married for about 10 ½ months and it just keeps getting better. It’s frustrating to not be able to see him as much since we work opposite hours (I’m gone from 7am – 6:30pm and he starts working at 4pm and works until 10pm – Chinese business hours) but I still enjoy every minute that I get to spend with him. I still look at him all the time and am just amazed that I was so lucky to find such a wonderful man to marry me.

The only frustrating thing right now is wishing that I could have time to be doing wife-y things. I wish I could say that I’m a model house keeper but that would be such a laughable lie that it’s not even funny. I’m proud of myself if I manage to make dinner and clean up the dishes afterwards, let alone more major tasks like vacuuming, laundry, cleaning the bathroom etc. It’s really hard to get much done since I spend 11 hours/day away from our lovely cinder-block apartment. I get home around 6:30 pretty well wasted from work and commuting (even though it’s just sitting on a bus it’s still really draining somehow) and only then can I start working on coming up with something to make that won’t take long to make and somehow still has nutritional value. We’ve unfortunately started ordering out a lot. It’s definitely not healthy for us and it’s not cheap either. But the dishes get overwhelming (we don’t have a dishwasher – another major reason for moving) and when we both get home tired, hungry and stressed it’s sometimes the best solution we can come up with.

Well, I probably ought to wrap this entry up. It’s already four pages and I’m getting closer to being in Salt Lake and racing in to work.

2 comments:

Jamie Jo said...

I TOTALLY know what you mean about the "wife-y things"! I was surprised how domestic I became when I got married. I mean, I always sorta mothered my roommates and tidied up the apartments I lived in, but now I feel if Brian is studying and doing husband-y things, I need to clean something, but I am dog tired from being out of the house all day. I figure once I am home more, I won't feel bad about not having time to do those things like dishes and laundry (although that is Brian's chore), but until then, I totally understand you, babe!
PS: Our anniversary is coming up! You two doing something fun? Brian and I are going to head down to San Diego and get some beach time in. Can't wait!
PPS: Thanks for inviting me to see your blog. I love these things!

Brittny said...

I can't even tell you how gratified I was by your comment Jamie :) Glad to know I'm not alone! We're coming to CA this weekend for Memorial Day, which will probably count for our anniversary. We're just not sure what to do!